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Bringing trade fairs and conferences online
All conventional marketing techniques have their equivalent on the internet, with the exception of conferences & trade fairs. Indeed, how could one realise such intense information exchange and networking function in the virtual world?
This is about to change, with a California startup, Expo3D which develops virtual environments to communicate and interact with customers. The 3D system offers 3 desirable features:
- a 24/7 exhibition
- a place where you can meet users and interact with them in a variety of ways (chat, VoIP, exchange business cards), enabling an exciting, rich and efficient exchange with a wide variety of people
- a conference center,with multiple rooms where you can organise events with a number of sequential or parallel webinars, which can also be recorded for 24/7 viewing in an archive room
In a way, Expo3D is 'Second Life for business'. Second Life offers a rich multimedia experience, a highly functional user interface, relatively simple messages and an open environmental for all to participate for its prime function of entertainment. Expo3D offers the same rich experience, but with a much friendlier user interface, in a more controlled environment for passing complex messages to targeted users, with the prime aim of building an industry community.
The Expo3D concept is quite innovative, especially for industrial marketing, which is lagging in the adoption of novel web-based marketing techniques. When envisaging a 3D project, a few barriers are to be expected:
- Organisational: running Expo3D requires downloading and installing the Expo3D client - in many large organisations, employees are not allowed to install additional software
- Technical: Expo3D's system requirements may prove a challenge for some
- Cultural: adoption of the Expo3D concept requires openness to a new way of doing things, usually the biggest barrier of all
To see the Expo3D concept in action.
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Hans,
I am now trying to discover the added-value of this new interfacing method. The disadvantage is that it requires you to hit a lot of arrow keys to get at information that would be only a few mouse clicks away on a classic website. The advantage is that if offerst a new and fascinating way to discover information. But that advantage will fade in a few months, when a majority of users will have discovered 3D environments like 2ndlife and other.
So I was wondering what kind of sustainable advantages such a 3D interface could offer to the user. I found a couple of them, which I have listed here. I would like to know more of them.
- you can visualise 3D objects and animate them in orde to demonstrate processes and products visually ... you could do this too on a 2D website and open a window with a 3D visualisation tool. But I beleive such 3D animations are more natural in a 3D environment and you can move around the animated object to see it from different view points without having to learn a different interface than the one you are using to go to the object.
- I am not sure, but I feel it is possible to show much more information in one 3D hall than you can imagine on one screen ... but I am not sure about this ... this would mean it is a more efficient way of browsing. Do you know of any study about this? Did expo3D post a commercial claim about it?
- you are able to meet real people with the same interest and share business cards, start networking, etc without taking a plane. To me, this is the most important advantage. In that case, however, you need a lot of people moving around in the expo -- which is not the case (yet). Announcing seminars and other kinds of meetings are necessary to focus people's attendance on a couple of minutes over a period of a month (or more). 2nd life business people organize events and pay people to "camp", to attract visitors near their business on the same moment.
- you will be able to talk to a (tele)sales person immediately, since you can click on a booth representative that can be the avatar of the sales person.This exists on a 2D website in the form of a "call-me now" button, but it comes more natural in the 3D environment
- youngsters who are playing with PSP, X-box, Wii, etc find this way of moving around more natural ... and maybe one day, the PC and the X-Box will merge so that this kind of interfacing will be the only one that remains.
I am curious to know about other advantages.
Jan
Hans,
I visited the Leonardo 3D convention centre and indeed, this is a new way of experiencing complex amounts of information.
Jan